Painting Clouds - Part II

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Watercolor painters generally proceed by painting from light to dark, carefully building up tones in successive layers, while preserving the white of the paper where necessary. While I do often work in this premeditated system when in the studio, painting outdoors, in strong sun and perhaps wind, demands a slightly different approach to be successful. The main problem that arises outdoors is that wet washes and the paper itself can dry just as one is trying to work a nice graded wash across the sheet. This can often produce unwanted edges and unfinished washes, which then require reworking, losing the very freshness that watercolor is perfect for. It’s frustrating, and may be the reason there don’t seem to be as many plein air watercolorists out there.

My solution to this issue was to teach myself how to work outdoors on over-saturated paper with very intense, wet colors, and to reduce detail to a minimum. This learning period produced many failures, but each painting honed my ability…